About the Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL)

Who We Are

The Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL) is a national lay Catholic organization committed to combating anti-Catholic defamation, working with the media to secure a fair hearing for Catholic positions on issues of public debate, and lobbying government and intervening in court challenges in support of law and policy compatible with a Catholic understanding of human nature and the common good.

Founded in 1985 as an independent lay organization, the CCRL received permission from the late Gerald Emmett Cardinal Carter to use the name Catholic. With a Board of Directors and membership that spans the country, the CCRL is faithful to the teachings of the Magisterium and works in cooperation with local bishops across Canada.

The work of the CCRL is exclusively sustained through donations.

Court Interventions

Anti-Defamation Actions

Media Appearances

Goals

As citizens in a pluralistic society, we intend to inform public policy and public opinion with the light of religious faith and reason. Legitimate argument is not “imposing morality.”

We promote the search for truth in society through sound education, open communication and respectful dialogue.

We affirm the traditional family to be the only secure basis on which a society can be built.

We acknowledge parents to have primary responsibility for the education of their children.

We work for the protection of all human life from conception to natural death.

We oppose discrimination against Catholics in the workplace on the basis of their beliefs.

We hope to encourage all Catholics to champion their faith, to see it as a gift to be shared, and to increase respect for Catholicism among non-Catholics.

Core Beliefs

The highest norm of human life is the Divine law – eternal, objective and universal. This law has been revealed in its fullness in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We believe every human being is created by God and is called to communion with God. For this reason we are bound to hold in reverence as a precious and inviolable gift all human life and to respect the intrinsic dignity of every human person.

As Catholics, we believe that all lay persons, by virtue of their baptism and confirmation, are obliged to build up the Church, and to work for the sanctification of the world so that it may have life in Christ.

We believe that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the dignity of the human person, which is known through the revealed Word of God and by reason itself.

This inalienable right is also a civil right. Our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law, and entrenches the fundamental right to freedom of conscience and religion.